Posts Tagged ‘encouragement’
The Artist Teaching Herself
I’m pretty sure the science shows we all have a default setting that we learn by doing and teach by example. We crave direct experience that puts us into meaningful contact with each other and makes us more aware of our own insights. When we learn we teach ourselves. When we are caught in the […]
Daylight Savings Time as Timelessness
The clock on the wall of my studio tells me that it is 8:12. A week ago at this time it would have been 7:12. This large clock, that also shows temperature and humidity, is run by a little double A battery and its hands, its hours, its minutes and seconds are not connected to […]
Showing Up
Sitting across from me in the coffee shop is my 95 year old father reciting lyrics from a song that matters to him today. The song was written 65 years ago but for my dad it could have been released an hour ago. He’s been doing this my whole life. Making the moment shamelessly timeless. […]
Boxed Water and Art
“Can we go to the museum” is the text I receive, without a question mark, from my 12-year old daughter. “Yes” is my reply without period. I know there isn’t much there but the seven word exchange has my attention. By the time I arrive at school to pick her up she jumps into the […]
An Artist’s Studio By Any Other Name
I’m on a business trip. I’ve come to Chicago to visit an artist who established an art studio inside a school. I’m pursuing a question that interests me: Is an art studio always an art studio? I think of the now seldom-paraquoted: A rose by any other name is still a rose. The actual quote […]
Chairs Remix
It is snowing. On the ground it turns out to be more ice and water than snowflakes. This seems early for Indianapolis. Halloween is a week away and only the maple leaves are earnestly turning yellow. Autumn still has a lot to do before winter takes over. It’s impossible not to conjure up little weather […]
Central Library and the Grand Canyon
Standing on the south rim of the Grand Canyon with my father a few years back he commented, “It’s too big.” My dad doesn’t know how to sip a moment. He gulps down places as if he were dying of thirst for experience. And if the experience of a place is too big to fit […]
River
“Creativity is a river. It has its slow parts and its fast parts. It’s always flowing. (pause) And, I’m beginning to figure out how to stay in my water.” These words were spoken last Friday by an eleven-year-old artist at a Theater of Inclusion week-long day camp. The camp is designed to be an arts […]
Burning House
Listening is part of a master set of skills. It doesn’t matter whether you are a bicyclist listening to the traffic behind you, a museum visitor taking in the words of your companion, or the leader of a project trying to run a meeting. Listening carefully to your surroundings and the people sharing those surroundings […]